Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1887-03-21

voice, said:
81 don't know, but I'll try"
'sCome on, then - said Murdoch,
as he sprang down and hitched his
| horse to a post. But before he had
gone three steps he turned and lean
ed against the wall with his hand
against his side, shaking with laugh
ter.
You're rum customer, YOU are
You've never asked me what you're
to get y
The man dropped his head, and
| kicked at a stone on the ground.
Then he muttered, without looking
at Murdoch, sYou never asked me
whore I come from"
And Murdoch understood. There
was curious twist of perversitv in
his nature-or some of his friends so
called it. Civilized and respectable
citizens he would treat with the sub
limest audacity of disdain; it was a
common saying about him that he
feared nothing and respected nobody.
But for outcasts and disreputable
characters of any sort he had quick,
instructive sympathy. 1t did not take
much penetration to guess the histo
ry of the man before him, and follow
ing the impulse of the moment he
did the very thing to.bind that man
to him for life.
''All right, then. Is it bargain /?
Shake hands on it.
So they shook hands, and Bill Ad-
amson was installed among the shear
ers, and afterward, when that nOmad
tribe scattered away east and west,
to pastures new, he remained on as
one of the Barangaroo shepherds
a queer, solitary man, who worked
for three, seldom spoke, and never
smiled, except when Murdoch spoke
to him. He liked the lonely life at
| the hut on Stringy Bark Hill, where
few men were willing to stay; among
the other hands on the station, he
was moody, sullen, and "difficult !"
| but the two men who shared the hut
with him found him swell enough to
get on with, if you let him alone.
The months went on, one day exactly
like another, till they added up into
| years, and it seemed to him that he
had lived there all his life. Murdoch
came up sometimes-he always when
he could went out to the huts himself
with the rations, instead of sending
would pass hy casually whom ont
shooting, and sit over pipe before
Adamson's fire, talking to him in that
frank, trustful, kindly way of his,
| which won the hearts of black and
white men alike. 1t was at such
times as these that he got all Bills
history from him, bit by bit, and
deepened into a dumb, dog-like wor-
ship the mans first vague admiration.
| do not know whether Bill Adamson
had ever loved any one or anything
in his life before-I do not know
that he loved Lennox Murdoch.
And now Gibson had brought the
news that Lennox Murdoch lay dy-
ing at Barangaroo. | cannot try to
follow and analyze the wild, formless
thoughts that worked in that dark
| brain of his. A superstitious sailor
to begin with, brooding for weeks to-
gether over his own thoughts in the
! bush, it is in truth scarcely to be
wondered at if his ideas of the I'm
seen were not much higher than those
| of the bronZe-colored savages who
would come and eat themselves stu
| pid on Murdoch's mutton and damper
round their campfires near his hut.
! He believed in the existence of q
| higher power, whose name he some
| times used in oaths, and to whom,
when more reverently inclined, he
vaguely referred-but this rarely hap
pened-as They and, in sort of
way, in the efficacy of prayer, though
his views on the subject were pecu-
liar. Only l know that there came
to him then, in some dim and inartic-
ulate shape, the old, old, ever-recur-
ring idea of "a life for life, and
the demon god whose cruel will can
only be satisfied with blood.
They came in as usual, and settled
down to their supper and their GUS
tomary monosyllabic talk. Just at
last, before they turned in for the
night, one of them happened to ask
| him whether he had seen any one
that day. He answered in his slow
| drawl, as he knocked the ashes from
| his pipe against Lis knee
"Gibson from Murray's was here
this afternoon. Came past Baranga-
roo. Says the boss is real bad. Got
hurt with a tree falling on him."
There was a dead silence. Then
| the two interchanged comments and
| questions in a low voice, and finally,
after having tried in vain to get more
lucid information from him, they turn
ed away and wrapped themselves in
their blankets, leaving him still smok-
ing by the fire. Thereupon he look
ed up aud said: ''One o you stay
here to-morrow-I wanter go down
and see how he is = to which they
answered ..All right" and were
asleep in a few minutes.
He sat still watching the diving